{Chapter 4}

Livia found herself, once again, struggling to warm herself. It wasn’t extremely cold out, but she hadn’t moved for a while, so the cold was starting to sink into her skin. At least this time she was dressed more appropriately for the weather. She was still in light jeans, but she was wearing her own clothes this time, which meant that she had brought along a jacket. Though it wasn’t made of heavy material, the jacket did its job fairly well.

She wanted to stand up and walk around a little, just to get her blood moving and maybe warm herself a little, but all she could hear was what she imagined the studio’s reaction to be if she did that.

“She’s nervous!”

“So cute!”

“Does she think he’s not coming?”

Livia wanted to avoid that. She was nervous, but considering she was technically having her private life—virtual or not—she wasn’t that anxious. She was just cold.

She was waiting for Day Day, her virtual husband, to arrive for their first official date—or meeting…or whatever it was called. Livia didn’t feel comfortable calling it a date, but it held more meaning than to just be called a meeting. She switched between looking at the Mission card that the producers had given her when she arrived to the TV station’s building and looking at the people walking past where she sat on her bench.

She had been told previously that there would be a filming, and though she had thought she and Day Day would meet and film there, she had no objections when the producers handed her a card directing her to a particular address.

Since Day Day hadn’t arrived to the station before they left, Livia assumed that he would meet them all there, and that the producers had managed to give him his card in some way.

The people passing by were interesting to Livia. Mostly, she liked watching their faces when they saw the cameras. Some would ignore them, some would look at Livia, wondering why she was being filmed, and still others would look at Livia as though they were looking at someone that they couldn’t quite place. The latter reaction was the funniest for Livia, since she knew they would probably place her later on and mentally beat themselves for not knowing who she was immediately.

As each person walked towards her, from either direction, she looked at their faces, hoping and dreading that it would be Day Day, but so far, no one had been. She was actually slightly afraid that she wouldn’t recognize him and make a fool of herself. The mental picture she had of him could quite possibly be useless, since idols changed their looks so much.

As for what they would be doing once he came, Livia didn’t know anything. The producers wouldn’t say if they had a plan or if they were just going to let her and Day Day figure something out on their own.

Suddenly, she saw him. When she did see him, she almost laughed at herself for not thinking she would recognize him. For one, he walked differently than those around him; the American in him showing through. Second, there were two cameras following him. When he was close enough, Livia stood and greeted him.

“I hope you didn’t wait too long,” he said quietly after returning her greeting.

She shrugged, “Not that long.”

“Good,” Day Day said. “Sorry I’m late. I had to finish some stuff before I could come.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Livia assured him sincerely. She understood that in this profession, things often run later than you ever thought they would.

“Are…Are you ready to go?” Day Day asked her next.

“Yeah, but uh, do you know where we’re going…?” Livia asked in return, looking quickly at the producers surrounding them.

She saw Day day looking at them too, so assumed that he hadn’t been told if there was a plan or not. No one on the production staff moved though, so she and Day Day looked at each other.

“Want to just…walk?” Day Day asked, unsure of the next move. To Livia, it seemed cruel to leave her and Day Day to the planning on the first date-whatever, but there was nothing she could do. “But if you don’t want to,” Day Day added hastily, seeing and misunderstanding Livia’s confused face.

“Oh, no, walking’s fine,” Livia said. “I actually really like walking. Especially in a city.”

“Will you be cold though?” Day Day asked, looking over her outfit and looking worried. “I can give you my jacket if—”

Livia cut him off before Day Day could fully take his jacket off. The last thing she wanted was to be responsible for him getting sick.  “I’m fine. I’ll be better off once we start moving.”

Day Day looked unconvinced, but shrugged his jacket back on anyway. “Let’s get moving then,” he said. “You look really cold.”

They started walking down the sidewalk, falling into step with each other.

Livia knew that the cameras were following them, and she also knew that if she and Day Day didn’t talk, the producers wouldn’t be too happy, and nor would the audience. They needed something to cling to as they watched, so, even though both she and Day Day seemed to be content with the silence between them, she decided to ask questions, starting with the basics, even though she already knew a lot of the answers.

“So…Is ‘Day Day’ your real name?” she started.

She heard her husband chuckle. “No,” he said, looking at her. “My real name is David Kim, but because Korean doesn’t really have a ‘V’ sound, I took ‘Day Day’ as a nickname."

Livia nodded appreciatively, and hoped she looked like this was new information for the camera’s sake. “So I’m going to assume you weren’t born here in Korea?”

“No,” he answered, again with a small smile. “I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. In the United States,” he clarified. Unnecessary for Livia, but he didn’t know that as far as she knew.

“You speak English, then?”

“You can’t tell that Korean isn’t my first language?” he asked with a laugh.

Livia smiled and shrugged. “Well, I’m a foreigner too, so Korean, if it’s better than mine, sounds just about the same to me.”

Day Day laughed harder. Livia knew that he wasn’t laughing at her lack of knowledge of Korean, but at her logic, and she was okay with that. At least he was laughing. “Trust me,” he said. “My Korean isn’t that good. But…where are you from?” he asked, turning the questions on her.

“Um…” Livia always felt a little sheepish when she talked about her origins, mostly because most people had no clue she was from somewhere other than America. “I was born in Germany, and I lived there until I was ten, but then we moved to America and I lived there for another ten years. Then, I moved here.”

“Dang,” day Day sighed. “That’s a lot of continents.”

Livia laughed loudly. Of all the people she’s ever told that too, no one had ever said that before, and she wondered why not even she had thought of it that way. She had lived on more continents than most other humans even see in their lifetime.

“Does that you mean you speak German?” Day Day asked, visibly more comfortable now that he had made Livia laugh.

“I do,” Livia answered with a smile, grateful for the chance to exercise her German. Besides her mom, there weren’t a lot of people she spoke to regularly in German.

“And English?”

“Yep.”

Day Day sighed and shook his head. “That’s so awesome.”

Andrea smiled wider and looked down at the ground as they walked, a little embarrassed, but mostly flattered. She had been considered a foreigner for most of her life, and that meant that people always seemed to treat her differently. Mostly, they would speak in simpler terms than they would with citizens from their own country, as though she was unable to understand them. At first, that way of speaking was helpful, particularly in America, since English was a hard language, but after ten years in the country, it got really tiring. She was going through it again in Korea, but she had a larger amount of patience now, since she had already gone through it once. So, needless to say, meeting someone who thought that her ability to speak other languages was cool was a nice change of pace for Livia.

But then again, Day Day was a foreigner as well, so he probably understood.

“Why did you come to Korea?” Day Day continued to ask, dodging a few people as they walked in between he and Livia. Andrea didn’t know if it was a coincidence or not, but the side walked seemed to be getting busier and busier as the two of them walked.

“My step-dad is Korean, and he and my mom moved her when my sister entered college here. I sort of just followed along,” Livia answered. “What about you?”

Day Day shrugged. “Sort of the same thing. I had family here. I was only supposed to be here for a few months, but I’m still here.”

Livia chuckled, but they fell into silence. It wasn’t because either had run out of things to talk and ask about, but because the sidewalk they were on had gotten so crowded that they had to concentrate only on walking.

Livia was starting to wonder if going for a walk as two idols—particularly with cameras following them—was such a good idea. People, though they weren’t necessarily staring at them, were crowded around her, Day Day, and the cameras that were following them.

Just when Livia began to wonder if it was going to be like this the whole time she was on the show, she heard Day Day next to her start to laugh loudly.

“What is it?” she asked, looking at him. The crowd had gotten so large that they were at a stand-still, and Livia couldn’t find anything worth laughing about.

Still laughing, Day Day motioned for Livia to stand in front of him. She did so, but only cautiously. They had only just met, and though they were supposed to act like they were married, it seemed weird for her to be so close to him.

Once she was in front of him, Day Day pointed at a gap between the sea of people.

Through the gap, Livia could see what had made Day Day laugh so hard.

She saw now that they were standing in a large circle of people. At the center, there was a slight clearing and Livia could see two members of the group SHINee. It looked like it was Minho and Onew, and they were surrounded by cameras, filming what Livia recognized to be the show Guerilla Date.

Livia began to laugh as well, embarrassed, amused and shocked all at once. What were the chances that two shows would be filming in the same area on the same day?

“Come on,” she heard Day Day hiss in her ear. “Let’s go before it gets any more crowded.” Livia could her the amusement in his voice as he and her turned around and started pushing through the crowd that had gathered behind them.

As they navigated their way through the people, Livia could now see just how obvious it was that the people weren’t there to see the new couple on We Got Married. Most were young girls, and they were all looking past her and Day Day, not at them as she had previously thought.

Once through the crowd, they turned down a different, much less crowded street.

“Well, let’s see if we can try this again,” Day day sighed, making Livia laugh again. Smiling at her, he continued, in a much quieter voice. “I’m not going to lie, but I thought the crowd was for us.”

Livia burst into laughter, relived and amused by his confession. “So did I!” she cried.

That sent Day day over the edge, and he started laughing hard as well.

“Oh, how embarrassing,” Day Day sighed, looking back the way they came as he finally recovered enough to talk.

Livia was still smiling, but they continued walking, both replaying the memory in their heads and letting out respective giggles at times. She looked over her shoulder, slightly curious if anyone from the crowd actually had been for them, but was only greeted by two cameras instead of faces. She turned back around quickly. She had actually forgotten about the cameras that were following her and Day Day. An awkwardness seeped in, aided by the fact that they had just walked in on another filming.

“Look,” she heard Day Day say. She pulled herself out of her thoughts and looked at him. He had stopped walking and was pointing at something. Following his finger, she saw a large table, complete with grill next to it, and two people cooking food. Korean street food.

“You’ve eaten street food before, right?” Day Day asked, looking down at Livia. Day Day may be short, but Livia was even shorter, something that both she and Day Day appreciated.

Livia shook her head slowly, a little embarrassed. Between her family, money, distance and work, she had never had the opportunity to try one of the many street vendors in the city.

“What?!” Day Day cried. “Alright then, you have to try it now.” He hurried over to the closest vendor, the one he had pointed at, greeted them, and was ordering food before Livia could even catch up.

When she did get to the table Day day was at, the smell immediately made Livia hungry. Korean food had been an acquired taste for her, and it had taken her a while for her to like it, but now it had become some of her favorite food on the planet.

The food was made quickly, and Day day handed some kind of kabob thing to her. It didn’t look like anything Livia had eaten before, but she was open to trying it.

“We always get this food,” Day Day said absentmindedly, taking a bite of his own kabob.

“We?” Livia asked curiously. “Who’s ‘we’?” It had actually been a fear of hers that whoever became her husband on the show would already have a girlfriend in real life. She knew, having seen idols in person, that they really share very, very little of their lives with their fans. Whether it was the long, sleepless nights or a relationship, they kept a lot of secrets. She had even seen a few male idols declare they were single in backstage interviews while their long-time girlfriend stood nearby, disguised as a staff member. If that were the case, it would be impossible for Livia to ever feel comfortable with Day Day.

“’We’ as in my members and I,” Day Day answered, smiling knowingly. “We even have a game when it comes to street food.

Slightly relived, Livia asked, “What game?”

“If I tell you, you’ll have to play,” Day Day told her, raising an eyebrow.

“Alright,” Livia shrugged. “As long as it doesn’t involve anything disgusting, I’m game.”

Day Day chuckled. “Here’s how you play: the first vendor you come to, you get food. If you aren’t done with that food by the time you reach the next one, you have to by something from that one too.”

“You guys must eat a lot,” Livia said. She knew that there were a large amount of street vendors throughout the city.

Day Day shrugged. “Well, we are growing boys, you know.”

Livia laughed and they started walking again, continuing to eat. As she chewed, Livia remembered a question she had been meaning to ask Day Day. After swallowing, she said, “What’s a Bbangkku?”

Day Day laughed, nearly spitting out his food. “Tell you what,” he said. “Next time, I’ll bring a Bbangkku.”

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